Neurology fellowships in private practice and academics

[danielmd06]

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Good afternoon all,

I'm a PGY-4 Neurology resident planning to enter a fellowship in Sleep Medicine for the 2010-2011 year. As interview season approaches, I am often queried by rotating M4's (and PGY-1's and 2's) to provide information about Neurology fellowships outside my own knowledge base. I refer to appropriate personnel as best I can, but often would like to give more detailed information to interested parties.

Would anyone about to enter a specific fellowship, in fellowship training now, or at the attending level care to comment about your perceived pros, cons, relative difficulty of fellowship attainment, how competitive you feel your fellowship compares with others on the private practice/academic job market, likelihood of practicing 100% of your fellowship, and even general interests that led you to select your fellowship?

I'm going to add links from previous discussions as time goes by, but was trying to consolidate information for potential applicants and educate myself to better answer future guys/gals.

Thanks for any help from any quadrant!

-Dan

 

[danielmd06]

My opinions only here...corroborated by job recruiters, Neuro attendings I work with, and a two private practitioners (graduated residents from my program).

To start, my first comments/rank order to folks:

(1) General Neurology

Far and away the most sought after job for any of us entails either pure General Neurology or subspecialty work that involves a percentage of General Neurology. I feel this holds true in private practice and in academics both. I tell people they should have the greatest flexibility (financial, geographical, and time-wise) from this starting point. Whatever fellowship you wind up doing, you'll find that the greatest demand was (and is) for a General Neurologist.

(2) Stroke

I think this has changed from when I was an M4 (at which point Neurophysiology was widely considered the most "demanded" subspecialty/fellowship training for a Neurologist). The advent of tremendous advances in acute stroke care, secondary prevention of stroke, and an aging population have created a new niche for Neurologists. The demand seems to be very high on both academic and private practice settings (maybe slightly more in academics). Also, secondary to the high incidence and prevalence of cerebrovascular disease, there seems to be frequent opportunities for someone with fellowship training in stroke to practice 100% within their chosen subspecialty.

And to round out the top three sought out fellowships...again in my opinion:

(3) Sleep

(4) EEG/Neurophysiology

Please feel free to comment on my selections...or add further information. I am frequently asked about Pain Medicine, Neuro-Oncology, Movement Disorders, and Neuroimaging.